Sunday, August 2, 2015

Limestone Genre Expo—July 2015

I recently attended the inaugural festival of the
Limestone Genre Expo (July 25, 2015) in

Kingston waterfront

Kingston, Ontario. The festival gets
its name from the city’s moniker, based on the many heritage buildings
constructed there using local limestone..

It would have been a very long trip from my digs in Nova
Scotia; but I’m currently in Toronto, teaching writing at UofT and George Brown
College. I still had to get up earlier than I normally do to get to the 1-day
festival that started at ten in the morning.

.

It was worth it.

.

Derek Newman-Stille

Organizers Liz Strange, Barry King, Delina MacDonald and
Marlene Smith nailed everything right. Being the first of hopefully many more,
this writers’ festival wisely started small. But, like the good Doctor’s tardis,
the venue belied its size by being dense with quality and diversity.

Alison Sinclair

The Ongwandada Resource Centre, where the festival was
held, had lots of parking with a friendly well-lit ambience inside under an
atrium with tables and chairs for gathering and several rooms for panels and
workshops.

.

The festival covered several of the major genres such as
fantasy, science fiction, horror, romance and mystery, with representation by
well-known authors in each. Organizers offered a triple track program from 10 am
to 5 pm that included panels, informative workshops, readings, novel pitch
sessions with CZP and Bundoran Press and first page critiques with Caro Soles..Festival organizers populated their program with well-established writers from
their own communities. Readers of genre fiction and writers looking to learn
and network were given the opportunity to meet some of the top genre writers in
the region. The venue included a book fair, box lunches and a snack stand. The
only thing missing was a primo coffee bar.

Marie Bilodeau

Doug Smith

.The small venue provided an intimate setting for great
networking. I had a chance to meet many of my old friends and to make new ones.
Marie Bilodeau, an Ottawa fantasy writer, gave an exquisite reading of her new
series “Nigh”. Alison Sinclair, recently moved to Ottawa, beamed as she showed
me the new release of her Eyre series, “Contagion” by Bundoran Press. Aurora-winning short story author Douglas Smith gave an informative workshop on
how to market and sell your short stories. His excellent guidebook “Playing the
Short Game” sold for a special festival price. I caught Derek Newman-Stille sitting
in the lounge over a box lunch and discussed his radio show in Peterborough and
traded stories with Hayden Trenholm, publisher of Bundoran Press and
aurora-winning author of the Steeles Chronicles. Other writers who I had a
chance to visit with and meet included Caro Soles, Sandra Kasturi (of Chizine),
Alyssa Cooper, Eve Langlais, Matt Moore, Nancy Kilpatrick, Matthew Johnson, and
Violette Malan.

Hayden Trenholm

Eve Langlais

The organizers—themselves published genre writers (Strange
writes fantasy, horror and mystery and just released her first science fiction
novel, “Erased”; King writes science fiction)—started the festival in response
to an observed need to showcase genre writers in the Kingston area, otherwise
rich in non-genre writing festivals. “Kingston is in an interesting position because we do have so
many writers and we do have the WritersFest and so on,” explained King to Peter
Hendra of the Kingston Whig-Standard.
King felt there was room to showcase this literature in Kingston and the
surrounding area.

Liz Strange

“I find that genre fiction can sometimes be seen on a
lower status as ‘literary fiction’, and that stings,” Strange confided to me.
“I thought [the LGE] would succeed because there are not that many festivals of
this sort, and after we put feelers out to see who might be interested in
attending the positive responses were overwhelming.”

.Strange added that “nerd culture” these days is more
mainstream than in the past, thanks to George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones and Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series. Strange concluded that
this is a good thing for writers of romance, sci-fi, horror, mystery and
fantasy and observed that genres are blending a lot more (e.g., historical
fantasy, paranormal romance, etc.). I personally write mostly blended genres:
science fiction thrillers; SF eco-fiction; historical fantasy and romantic SF.

.

I asked Strange for her opinion on whether the festival
was a success and what the organizers plan to do for next year. She gave a
resounding yes; they had double the numbers they’d hoped for and didn’t lose
money (a common challenge with writing festivals). With most events tending to
be in spring or fall, they chose summer, which worked well and showed off
Kingston.

.

Based on the feedback and success of the con, it looks
like the festival next year will run two days..

Liz Strange, Marlene Smith, Barry King, Delina MacDonald

Now that’s great news!

Nina Munteanu is an ecologist and internationally published author of award-nominated speculative novels, short stories and non-fiction. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s recent book is the bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” (Mincione Edizioni, Rome). Her latest “Water Is…” is currently an Amazon Bestseller and NY Times ‘year in reading’ choice of Margaret Atwood.

About Nina

I'm The Alien Next Door. I'm an ecologist and a published author of several novels, articles and reviews. I teach writing at George Brown College and UofT. I also coach writers. For more on writing (articles and advice) and more information about my coaching, visit me at Nina Munteanu Writing Coach. Visit Nina Munteanu Writer for more about my own writing. My new site The Meaning of Water is devoted to our precious water and brings my interest as an ecologist and limnologist to help understand the meaning and importance of this precious and mysterious element. Inside, you'll find articles that explore what water is and its meaning to this planet and to us as a species and life form.